


Quid Pro Quo

by KanuKoris



Series: The Bishop DeSoto, Long May He Reign [5]
Category: The Outer Worlds (Video Game)
Genre: Bishop Max, Board Ending, Confession, Darkest Timeline, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Mind Games, Political Intrigue, Sexual Tension, power games, push and pull
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:19:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22110187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KanuKoris/pseuds/KanuKoris
Summary: The Captain thinks 'confession' would be a lot more interesting if it were a quid-pro-quo exchange...
Relationships: The Captain/Maximillian DeSoto
Series: The Bishop DeSoto, Long May He Reign [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1567744
Comments: 20
Kudos: 60





	1. Chapter 1

Captain Hawthorne strode into the Bishop’s office with confident steps and a cool expression on her face. The Bishop was forcibly reminded of the last time she had been there, and that much had changed in that short passage of time. This time, the Scientician guards on duty exited the office when she entered and closed the doors behind them, affording them some privacy.

The Captain marched up before throwing herself onto the chair in front of his desk, propping up her legs and lounging as if she were the one holding audience. There was a brittleness to her movements that made him think she was still harboring a storm of ill feeling towards him.

But her presence made him smile.

She looked offended and snapped, “Something amuse you?”

“It’s good to see you.” And it was. The last time he had seen the Captain, she had been shell-shocked. Raw and hurting. Though she was radiating contempt today, she looked like her old self again. Strong and self-assured. He would always prefer the latter.

“How is Captain Tennyson—“ he began to ask, but she cut him off.

“Akande made it clear to me that I’m supposed to take confession with you, which is the only reason why I’m here. So…” she shrugged, out of her element. “How do we start?”

“Like anything to do with the Board – with some paperwork.”

She gave him an incredulous look as he brought forth a stack of forms and handed her a pen. “You’re fucking kidding.”

“I’m fucking not.”

The Bishop thought he saw the corner of her mouth twitch a little, as if she had wanted to smile but then stopped herself. Instead she tried to skim through the contract, a slight frown turning into a furious scowl on her face as she flipped through what seemed like an endless stack of pages.

“Sifting through a pile of legalese isn’t exactly what came to mind when I was given the appointment today.”

“What did you have in mind?” He asked in a tone that was a touch too innocent. She gave him a curious look over the top of the paperwork.

“I reckoned there would be more… confessing? I tell you all of my sins: the time I drank too much and started a fight, or if I killed someone unfairly, or stole something. Not if I,” she frowned at a line in the contract, reciting it aloud, “’Agree to release the Halcyon Holdings Corporation and all of its affiliates from any liability in the instance of sensitive information imparted during a ‘Confession’ resulting in the harm of the ‘Confessor’.”

He thought amusedly that the paper in her hand would shrivel up if there were any more acid dripping from her voice. “Trust me, Hawthorne, the contract that I had to sign was twice as long.”

She sighed, flicking through until she got to the last page, meant for signatures. “So, I sign this and then what? Is there a quota? I have to confess twenty sins per financial quarter?”

“You sign this, I witness it, it gets filed, and then we’ll start tomorrow. And think of confession as a conversation, a guided one, but a conversation nonetheless.”

She watched him for a moment, measuring him to some unknown metric. Her expression gave him no clue as to whether he had passed or failed. “It’s not a private conversation though, is it? One way or another, record of it gets back to the company.” She passed a hand over the contract. “It’s all in the fine print.”

He didn’t need to say anything. She already knew the truth, it had all been put out on the table for her. She twirled the pen between her fingers and then fired an amused, biting look in his direction. “For shame, Bishop. You need to trap me in a contract just to get me to speak to you again?”

His mouth fell open agape, the back of his neck prickling with frustration. She had the audacity to accuse him of orchestrating all of this just to get her attention? “Trust me, Hawthorne, I didn’t ask for your assignment and if I had my druthers, I wouldn’t be doing this at all. But we’ve both been told to do something, so maybe if you cooperated we could get it over with.”

She pouted, and he grew more incensed by the petulant tone to her voice. “But I don’t like this arrangement.”

“Then Law as my witness, do tell us what the Captain _wants!_ ”

There was a wicked light to her eye and she tapped his pen against her lips. With a soft blow to his gut, he realized a second too late that he had walked right into her trap. “Don’t you think it would be more fun if you did some confessing too?”

“How…” He asked through dry lips, “How do you mean?”

His eyes were held captive as she traced the pen around her lips, once, twice… a smirk curving onto them. “I’ll confess a sin for every one that you confess to _me_. There’s a term for that, isn’t there?”

“You mean ‘ _quid pro quo_ ’ – and that’s not how it works,” he rasped, annoyed.

“I don’t care.” With a booted heel she pushed away from his desk, ready to stand up and leave. “Take confession with me, or I won’t sign this contract, and I’ll never set foot on Byzantium again.”

The Bishop felt a _frisson_ of fear at the prospect, because his life and station were on the line if the Captain were to walk away, but he tried to remind himself that it was a hollow threat. There was a reason she had come back this time. A very compelling reason why she had gone to Groundbreaker and delivered the Adjutant’s gift, and then come to him as ordered.

“You know that if you sever ties with the Board, they will have no reason to keep you happy. Any understanding you have with them right now… disappears.”

His voice was low and rumbled with threat, but to his surprise she leaned in with a hard, determined look on her face. “ _Try me_ , Maximillian. Try to sway me once I’ve set my mind on something.”

He let out a disgusted noise, but she had him dead to rights there. The Bishop realized he didn’t trust her to do the smart thing if her pride got in the way. That was Captain Hawthorne in a nutshell, wasn’t it? She was bullheaded, especially to her own detriment. If he pushed her, if she thought he was challenging her, she would fight back tooth and nail.

“Law save you, you’re a spiteful woman,” he spat, though instead of offending her she looked pleased.

He quickly tried to weigh his options, but felt claustrophobic as they closed on him one-by-one. If he let Hawthorne get away, the Adjutant would either find a way to excommunicate him from the OSI and banish him to some backwater settlement… or he’d get a blade to his throat in the middle of the night.

He had to play Hawthorne’s fucking game.

“What do you want to know?” He sighed peevishly at the delighted smirk on her face when she heard him admit defeat. “What _sin_ of mine are you so curious about?”

She leaned back in again, elbows resting on top of his desk, a captive audience. “How many lovers do you have?”

He looked at her incredulously, torn between wanting to laugh or yell in utter frustration. She looked so smug and so very pleased with herself, it made him want to find some way of wiping the smirk off her face. “Really? You’re stalling this entire process because you just want to hear some gossip?”

“That doesn’t sound like an answer,” she said teasingly.

“None,” he snarled, disgusted with the whole situation. He saw the disbelieving look on her face and repeated himself more firmly. “ _None_ currently.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine. How many have you _had_ as Bishop?”

“You can’t just change the fucking question.”

“I think I just did.” She lifted an eyebrow, a look on her face that said ‘dare me’, and it made his blood simmer.

He took a deep breath, trying to rein his anger back under control, and grit out, “Two.”

She looked disappointed and let out a mocking noise of disbelief. “ _Two?_ And you’ve been Bishop for how many years? Law help you, Max, have you found a way to get your books to pleasure you, or do they just not like priests on Byzantium?”

He saw red. Whatever tenuous control the Bishop had over his temper completely snapped, and before he knew it, he had risen to his feet and come over to the other side of the desk. With a growl he grabbed the Captain’s arm and pulled her up and out of her chair. She laughed, batting her hands uselessly against his chest, pen and contract still clutched in her grasp.

“Leave then,” he snarled, dragging her down the length of the carpet with every intention to throw her out of the doors to his office. “Let Felix die, let the Board hunt you down to the edges of the colony – do whatever it is you please, Captain, but you are done _fucking with me_.”

“Max. Wait.”

He bumped against her and found that he was unable to budge her. Hawthorne had planted her heels into the floor and was refusing to move. She was strong enough to contest him and they were locked in a tug-of-war. The Bishop shifted his weight and was preparing to shove forward and break the stalemate, when the Captain surprised him by tapping the pen against his lips.

She smiled at him and said, “I have to sign before I leave.”

Confused, he watched as she smoothed the contract against his chest. Her concession was unexpected, and he felt lost as he had a head full of steam with nowhere to direct it anymore. He felt the pen tip move against him through his robes as she signed her name.

Finished, she tucked the pen into the collar of his vestments and then looked up at him with teasing eyes. He realized she was pressed right against him, looking comfortable as if she rested on him all the time, and he tried to keep his breathing even. She was so close, she would be able to feel it quicken.

“Tell me,” she whispered, “what you’re thinking whenever you look at my lips.”

As if summoned, his eyes darted down to her mouth and back up to her eyes, tricked into betraying himself. She looked delighted, and he murmured, “It’s your turn to make a confession now.”

“You’re right.”

She pushed off of him and made her way to the doors. She airily called out, “Next time!” as she slipped through them.

The Bishop was left clutching the contract to his chest, her signature – her promise in ink – drying on the page.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my headcanon, 'Confession' is more like auditing and invasive psychological profiling. The Board has several ways to data-mine the population, and religion is one part of it.
> 
> (also - who loves you? I love you. We finally got to it)


	2. Chapter 2

“Where do you find the time to read all of these? Or do they just stay untouched on your shelves?” Captain Hawthorne ran her fingers along the spines of several old books, her nails scratching lightly against the bindings. She looked taken in by the sheer amount, having paced from bookshelf to bookshelf.

He took a moment to appreciate the view of her existing in his space. She looked… comfortable. At home.

“I’ve read most of them at least once. Many were given as gifts. No one knows what to buy the leader of the Scientific Order so it’s usually books. Or alcohol.”

“Lucky thing those are your two interests.”

He smirked and pulled up a chair for her at a small reading desk in the room that served triple duty as his library, study, and sitting area. He sat down and smoothed his vestments with a single practiced motion, gesturing to the chair in front of him for her to have a seat. Hawthorne lingered by the shelf, glancing from the chair then up to him, and continued to pace.

Obstinate.

“You owe me a truthful response, Captain,” he said lightly, wanting to keep the tone of the conversation friendly for the moment. “According to your rules, anyway.”

She shrugged, still pretending to be more interested in a seven-part volume that chronicled the history of Philosophism and how it diverged from Rationality during the Enlightenment Period. She didn’t look away from the books, but cocked her ear towards him and said, “What rule would that be?”

“Quid pro quo, I answered one of your questions and now you owe me an answer – _don’t crack the spine, Hawthorne_.” She startled, looking guilty, and he flashed her a warning look. “We have to treat other people’s things with respect.”

She snapped the book shut and placed it back on the shelf, cramming it in a little more forcefully than was necessary. He saw a pout forming on her lips and she stomped over to his desk, swung the chair around, and sat down on it backwards so she could rest her arms on the headboard. Being scolded made her defiant.

“Is this how confession is supposed to happen? In your personal quarters? Not on official company time? Bishop, I’m going to start suspecting that you’re actually just trying to take advantage of me.”

He blinked, unfazed. “There isn’t a soul in Halcyon that could take advantage of you.”

She smirked. “Flatterer.”

“You’re too stubborn and trigger-happy. Lethal combination.”

“ _Flatterer_ ,” she laughed, then considered him through narrowed eyes. “What do you want to know? How will we kick off our first confession?”

“What did you want from CFO Matisse at the Chairman’s party?”

She took him in with a lift of her eyebrow and then let out a peal of laughter that simultaneously made his blood simmer, but also stoked a well of hunger in his gut. “And you kept saying that you weren’t jealous. I didn’t realize the Bishop was allowed to fib.”

“I’m not—“

But his voice died in his throat as Hawthorne got up from her chair in one swift motion, came over to his side of the table, swung a leg over him and straddled his lap. She placed both hands on either side of his head, gripping the back of his chair, and trapped him in a cage of her arms. A wicked grin on her face.

She arched her back so she could lean in close, teeth by his ear. “I just wanted to get closer to him. Make a new friend.”

The Bishop was expecting her game, and he decided that if Hawthorne was going to play dirty, then it was only fair to reciprocate. He gathered his arms under her thighs and lifted her up, startling her as he stood up and deposited her onto the desk with a soft ‘thump’. Before she had a chance to get her bearings, he pushed the chair into the desk and trapped her legs with it so she couldn’t stand back up right away.

“You do realize there is a consequence for lying during confession?”

She managed to kick the chair away and free her legs. “Five lashes against the back? A fine to be paid by the next tax quarter?”

Before she could hop down from the table, he moved in so that he was standing between her legs and placed his hands down on either side of her, mirroring the way she had trapped him earlier. She leaned back, panting lightly with a hint of panic in her eyes as the Bishop growled lowly, “What kind of penance would you want to serve?”

She gulped, finally at a loss for words.

He pressed in further. “It’s your game, Alex. Weren’t you trying to get me to play along? You need to answer truthfully. Tell me what you wanted with Matisse… or tell me how you want to be punished. Your choice.”

He found something downright delectable at the tinge of fear on her face, though he tried hard to shove that down and hide it where the rest of his most shameful thoughts resided. But here it was, he finally had her beat at her own game of chicken. Hawthorne was brave in the face of many things, but not when it came to being honest about herself.

“I…” Her voice sounded dry, and she licked nervous lips.

“Was it blackmail? Bribery? Were you hired to find out some insider secrets on Spacer’s Choice?”

She looked up at him, eyes shining, and she whispered, “Why, I want you to choke me, force me onto my knees, and make me beg for forgiveness. _Maximillian_.”

Before he could help himself, a strangled noise tore from the Bishop’s throat. He felt a traitorous twitch within his vestments and it only grew more urgent as Hawthorne hooked her legs around him and pulled him in tight. Refusing to let him go, hips shifting obscenely against him as a throaty chuckle left her lips. She threw her head back, giving him a good view of her exposed neck, and her words thundered in his ears.

He brought up a hand and ran rough fingertips gently over the creamy skin of her neck. He could feel her purr hum and vibrate under his touch. He hesitated and her eyes, dark and dewy, locked with his, anticipating the feel of his hand being wrapped around her. But with one more feather light stroke, he moved his hand down to grip her shoulder and push her away, stepping back and disentangling himself from her legs.

“I guess it’s your turn, Hawthorne.” He said smoothly, acting for all the world as if they were resuming a normal conversation and there wasn’t a rock hardness between his legs that was making him feel faint.

She looked confused, then offended. She wasn’t finished with this part of her game, but the Bishop wasn’t content to let the Captain take the lead entirely. “My turn?”

“To ask me something and get an honest answer.”

“Hmm.” Hawthorne leaned back so that she was half-lying down on the desk, propped up only by one arm, a leg dangling over the side. The Bishop thought she looked rather wanton half-draped over his furniture, but there was a calculating rather than a seductive look on her face.

“Does the Adjutant have access to every database in the corporation? Or the Chairman?”

The Bishop felt as if Hawthorne had dumped a glass of ice water over his head. What damned fool idea was running through her head that she would ask him that? He struggled for a moment, wondering if there was any way he could even deflect that question, but a steel hand gripped his innards tightly as he thought that any slip up on his part would be lethal. If the Adjutant saw him expose her or the Corporation in any way during a confession…

“What kind of question is that?” He spat furiously.

Hawthorne looked taken aback by the degree of vehemence and the black scowl on the Bishop’s face. She kept up her playful tone, though he could tell that she was getting worried. “Or you have to answer something else. Just like I did. Your choice.”

“ _What?_ ”

She cocked her head, her lips pursed. “Have you ever touched yourself and thought of me?”

_Law damn it_.

The Bishop thought he was going to get whiplash or a fucking stroke with how wildly their exchanges swung from field to field. He felt his heart pounding in his chest, relieved that he had narrowly avoided a sticky situation, but felt dread creep in that his saving option was still humiliating.

“No,” he softly muttered.

She rolled her eyes, a mocking smile already on her lips. “You’re not allowed to lie—“

“I’m not,” he said firmly.

Wisely, she trapped the ‘why?’ behind her teeth before she could betray herself and ask, though he saw the beginnings of the question form on her lips. She frowned at him, trying to read the truth on his face, and unsure.

“Make me believe you,” she said.

“I don’t… _abuse_ myself very often.” He felt his hands clench into fists by his side, his skin burning with embarrassment. Teeth clenched, he forced himself to continue. “Stoicism is a tenet of the Scientific Order. ‘Reason, not emotion, is the seat of morality’. I try to nurture and develop my mind, Hawthorne. Not some common, primal desire.”

She looked shocked, as if she couldn’t believe him though she could tell he was speaking the truth. Her judgment made him feel ashamed, made him feel like he was lacking somehow, and shook his confidence that normally was unwavering. He didn’t like that a fucking look from her could make him feel that way.

“Law, Max, I—“

“Why haven’t you seen Felix in all this time?” The Bishop rounded on her, his pride hurt and needing to regain the attack. “You were shocked to see him. I looked into your ship’s docking records and Felix hasn’t traveled with you since I did. Why so long? Why wouldn’t you speak to him for so many years?”

Her eyes widened. His shots had hit home, and she took a second to recover before lifting herself up back into a sitting position. She watched him, warily, and said, “It was the other way around. He wouldn’t speak to me. Him… and Parvati.”

It was the Bishop’s turn to feel caught off guard. “Miss Holcomb too? Why?”

Hawthorne wrapped an arm around herself and looked up at him through a curtain of hair. Small. Mournful. And, for the first time since she had arrived on his doorstep that day, _confessional_.

“Because I gave up the Hope colonists to the fucking Board, Max… why else?”

“And they felt betrayed by you,” he murmured, the pieces falling into place. Hawthorne snorted, glaring at him with raw eyes, as if he were a fool to have missed this part of their history. And, he supposed he was. “Why _did_ you give up Welles to the Board?”

She huffed an irritated sigh that trembled, which made him suspect there were unshed tears lurking somewhere in her throat. “Isn’t that the million dollar question? Go ahead and chisel that on my fucking headstone. I’ll pay the extra fee. What’s the going rate now, a hundred bits per letter?”

The Bishop came to her side again and placed a hand under her chin. He firmly gripped her jaw and forced her to look directly at him. “Answer honestly. Please.”

She looked furious, but there was an edge of pain to her anger, and he got the sense that some of it was directed to herself. She hissed, “Why? Because _I trusted you_. Because when I had none of the answers or any direction, I trusted your convictions. Your faith. Your belief in the Board, and the Grand Plan and in how the universe should run.”

She laughed mirthlessly, a hot tear spilling out of the corner of her eye. A secret he was sure he was never meant to see. “I was a fool, and I’ve paid the price for it so many times over… and still have yet to pay.”

Max loosened his grip and instead curled a finger under her chin, tilting her face upward. She radiated an anger that was raw, exposed and aching, and he knew in his bones that this was a sighting more unique than being able to catch a solar eclipse. He felt privileged, in awe, and with a husky voice he whispered, “You wanted to know what I’m thinking every time I look at your mouth…”

Curiosity sparked in her eye and her lips parted in question. His thumb brushed her lower lip, tugging it open wider.

“It’s that I want to kiss that fucking smirk off your lips.”

With a hiss trapped between his teeth, he pressed a bruising kiss onto said lips, hand moving to grip the side of her face and pull her closer in. Hawthorne gasped against his mouth, which only spiked his excitement, making him want to taste and devour every breath of hers. He felt her hands slide up his chest and grip fistfuls of his vestments and she yanked him in, her hungry mouth dragging teeth against his lips, biting as her own anticipation grew.

“Alex…” he dragged his lips up the line of her jaw, her name whispered along the wet trail. She gripped the back of his neck, trying to pull him in closer, urging him on.

He kissed and nibbled the outer shell of her ear, feeling that traitorous stirring again as the ticklish sensation made her squirm against him, but through the fevered dance of tongue and lips he whispered, “There are cameras…”

He felt her freeze for a second, and splayed his hand against her stomach, trying to disguise her startlement as excitement. He sought out her mouth again and he pressed whispered words onto her lips in between hungry kisses. “They are watching us…”

When they finally broke apart, she looked into his eyes, out of breath, and there was a hint of fear mingled in with the swirling dark ardor. He gave her a slight nod with lowered lids, before letting her out of his grasp. He took a step back, adjusted his cuffs and the gold pendant of his office, ready to become the Bishop again.

“I hope you have a better understanding of confession now, Captain. Be prepared for next time.”

The Captain understood she was being dismissed, and with a light hop off the table she got to her feet, and strode out of his private quarters without so much as a glance behind. Though the Bishop thought he saw her absently run her fingers over her lips.

If they felt anything like his, they were burning too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You wouldn't believe how long it took for me to get these two assholes to finally smooch.
> 
> And yeah, it's not your typical 'confession' anything, but this trash has a mind of its own.
> 
> But look! We did it! We got here! Coming up in the next installment: Cap and the Bishop play tossball! (JUST KIDDING THEY BONE.......well actually, they do play tossball but THEN they bone) Catch you then!


End file.
